Essays on trans, intersex, cis and other persons and topics from a trans perspective.......All human life is here.

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15 March 2008

In 1974 Elizabeth Carmichael, 6"1' (1.85 m) and 225 lb (102 kg), a feisty widow with five children, and a small staff in Los Angeles, announced to the world that they were selling an economical three-wheeled car called the Dale. She got booked on nationwide talk shows. Money rolled in: for dealerships, for shares, as downpayments on the cars.

However there was not really a Dale. There was a wooden mockup with the same kind of engine that runs portable electric generators, and a lawn-mower carburetor. The district attorney from Los Angeles explains: 'The car would break after driving a few yards. I don't mean that it would quit running. I mean that it would break. Major stuff'.

After a few months the California authorities investigated, and Carmichael disappeared. She resurfaced several months later in Dallas, Texas, and announced an expanded and improved market plan. The California authorities issued warrants. She disappeared again.

With all this attention, it took a further two months before it was realized that Ms Carmichael was also Jerry Dean Michael who had five children, and a wife, or at least no-one made the accusation publicly. A year later Ms Carmichael was found in Miami. Tried in Dallas, she was found guilty of grand theft. She explained her gender in that she had been undergoing sex-change operations for eight years.

She spent three years appealing the sentence in that she would not fit into either a men's or a women's prison. The appeals ran out in 1980. Carmichael never showed for sentencing. In 1989 she was identified after being featured on television. She was living near the town of Dale (same as the car) in Texas. Note that Carmichael is Michael (her real name) with 'car' added.

She was sent to a men's prison in California. Other aliases: Jerry Barrett, Mike Moran, Mike Morgan, William Tracy Parker, William Richard Raines, Katherine Elizabeth Johnson.

The documentary probably won't be available until 2018. For those that are curious and interested in her life there is much more than just The Dale. I hope you will watch the documentary to gain more insight into her life once it's available.

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About Zagria

I have a social science degree. I spent several years in the 70s doing Gay Lib counselling, and moved on to organizing trans groups. I was rejected by the Clarke Institute (now CAMH) in the mid 1980s, probably because I do not match either of their stereotypes, but was accepted by Russel Reid on our first meeting in late 1987, and had surgery from James Dalrymple some months later. I have mainly worked as an IT consultant. I have been with the same husband for 45 years.